Chamber Singers of Iowa City celebrate 50th anniversary with Haydn masterpiece and world premiere
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If you are tired of staying home and watching yet another mediocre movie, now is your chance to experience a live, very timely performance of one of history’s greatest choral works and the birth of a brand new one.
Music Director David Puderbaugh will lead the Chamber Singers of Iowa City in a program featuring Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass for chorus, orchestra, and soloists Jessica Pray Patel, Kelly Hill, Colin Wilson and Andrew René. Crowning the performance will be the world premiere of "Music of the Stars," composed by the celebrated British composer Cecilia McDowall.
This grand finale to our 50th season will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday. We will perform in the gorgeous Voxman Concert Hall at the University of Iowa School of Music, 93 E. Burlington St., Iowa City.
Written in 1795, at a time of intense fear for the future of Austria, the Lord Nelson Mass was originally titled “Mass for Troubled Times.” Haydn’s masterpiece underscores the fact that humanity has faced trials before. This stunning choral-orchestral work was written in response to the political turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars and subsequent military victory of Admiral Lord Nelson over Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile.
This work will be cathartic to hear, as our world experiences its own turmoil: our political landscape, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. Haydn’s Mass takes us through a depiction of danger and agitation to one of ultimate victory.
The opening movement in D minor evokes doom, with its rhythmic and melodic military motive. Later movements in D major apply Baroque style counterpoint and virtuosic string and choral writing. The soloists sing as an ensemble rather than individuals, and intermingle with superb choruses in one of Haydn’s greatest compositions.
"Music of the Stars" is a newly composed choral-orchestral work featuring the words of Brian Odongo, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and James Weldon Johnson. Their texts focus on the healing power of music.
It was made possible by a commission from an anonymous donor to celebrate our 50th season. CSIC chose McDowall, having sung several of her works in the past, including her Christus natus est, recorded on CSIC’s compact disc on Christmas Day 2011)
McDowall has won several awards for her works in the United Kingdom, and was most recently honored with King’s College, Cambridge’s annual carol commission for its famed Christmas Eve “Lessons and Carols” service, which is broadcast live worldwide each year. Her music has been commissioned and performed by several of the world’s most renowned choirs, including the BBC Singers, The Sixteen and the Kansas City Chorale.
"Music of the Stars" begins atmospherically, and includes a Ukrainian folk song melody, a nod to that terrible conflict. The middle movement possesses energetic, driving rhythms, and the final movement ends with the warm, expressive words: “I brood not o’er the broken past, nor dread whatever time may bring, … while in my heart, there swells a song I can sing.”
The work fuses beautiful melodic lines with interesting harmonies and rhythmic exuberance. This sublime, hopeful music will launch Chamber Singers of Iowa City into another 50 years of great choral music-making.
Katherine Eberle taught voice at the University of Iowa School of Music from 1991 to 2019. Since retirement, she teaches at West Music and works s a part-time assistant at the Preucil School.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Chamber Singers of Iowa City crown 50th year with Haydn masterpiece
